Day 19: Aswan

Otherwise entitled: It’s all relative.

We took the overnight train from Cairo and pulled into Aswan in the morning. We took a bit of a break (the sleeper train hadn’t made it in yet) and headed out a few hours later to see the sights. We saw the unfinished obelisk, which is in the granite quarry. We got to walk up to the top and see it– there’s a trench around it that the workers carved so that they could stand in it and work. We walked fast though- it was still boiling hot! However, the photo turned out nice…

Then we headed to see the Aswan high dam. When the Egyptians built the dam, much land was flooded and they actually moved several ancient sights to preserve them before and after the flooding occurred. One of the sights that they moved was the ancient Philae temple, a temple to Isis that resided on an island that was flooded. On the stone you can actually see the marks from the flood.